


the universe would turn to a mighty stranger

by mygalfriday (BrinneyFriday)



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-10
Updated: 2013-09-10
Packaged: 2017-12-26 05:19:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/962068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrinneyFriday/pseuds/mygalfriday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He never acknowledged her, too afraid of pouring salt into a wound that never healed. Having her near had ached, deep in his chest, but the abrupt absence of her is worse. The Doctor spends his days with his eyes wide open and his ears always pricked for the sound of her light footsteps behind him. Post-TNOTD.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the universe would turn to a mighty stranger

**Author's Note:**

> Story title and quote from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.

_“You said I killed you – haunt me then. The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe – I know that ghosts have wandered the earth. Be with me always – take any form – drive me mad. Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!”_

–      Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte

 

He keeps waiting for her to come back. He spent years seeing her everywhere he went, in every crowd, alone in the TARDIS, out of the corner of his eye. Her voice has been a soothing murmur in his ear, her fingers carding through his hair as he slept, both a comfort and an agony like no other. He never acknowledged her, too afraid of pouring salt into a wound that never healed. Having her near had ached, deep in his chest, but the abrupt absence of her is worse. The Doctor spends his days with his eyes wide open and his ears always pricked for the sound of her light footsteps behind him.

 

When the doors shut behind Clara after another adventure, the Doctor drops his chin to rest against his chest and sighs. “What now, dear?” The TARDIS is silent, as if she knows he isn’t really talking to her, that secretly, he’s hoping for a verbal reply from someone else. The control room is silent but the Doctor doesn’t move, waiting.

 

He hasn’t seen his wife since Trenzalore. She doesn’t mock his driving from over his shoulder; she doesn’t whisper the solution to a problem in his ear when he’s in a bind. When he swims his laps in the pool and surfaces with a gasp, she isn’t sitting by the poolside with a fond smile. When he ties his bowtie in the mirror, he no longer sees her reflection behind him and the look in her eyes that always told him she was remembering their wedding. He always pretended not to see any of these things but he cherished each and every glimpse, clung to them like some men cling to their sanity. Without River around, he can slowly feel himself losing his.

 

Even her ghost had been better than nothing at all.

 

He peeks around the TARDIS hopefully one more time, the blue lights of the control room showing him that no one is here but him. With a weary sigh, he strokes the console and flips a lever, his shoulders hunched in the echoing silence. She just left him, alone in the dark, lost and drifting without her guidance. They’d said goodbye but he hadn’t really expected it to stick. He and River always had a way of finding each other. River would never just leave him, not if she could help it.

 

So what’s keeping her now?

 

He starts to think that perhaps she hadn’t left but instead somehow found a way to make herself invisible even to him. He’d told her that seeing her hurt him and River, being the stupid, selfless, infuriating woman that she is, had simply decided to make it easier for him, never mind how much it hurt her that he couldn’t even look at her anymore. She’s still here. Of course she’s still here – she just doesn’t want him to think she is.

 

As the days wear on without any sign of River, the Doctor begins to plot ways to draw her out, to make her show herself. He’s found in centuries of marriage that the best way to get a reaction out of River is to make her angry and the best way to make her angry is to poke fun at one of the first decisions she ever made by herself – her love of archaeology.

 

His first thought is to raid her notes for material but that would involve venturing into her study – something he hasn’t done since just after Manhattan, when she shut herself away for hours at a time to write her book. He hasn’t the stomach to open the door and venture inside the dusty room with all her books and handwritten notes, the glasses that always perched so adorably on her nose when she read. So he goes into the library instead and quickly finds the section of articles she’d written during her years as a professor.

 

Selecting one at random, he glances around at thin air triumphantly, swaggers over to a plush chair near a reading lamp and collapses onto it. Noisily crinkling the pages as he flips through them, he hums to himself and mutters, “Hope you don’t mind, dear. I’m in the mood for a comedy.”

 

He expects at least an invisible hand swatting the pages from his grasp.

 

Nothing.

 

He harrumphs and scans the first paragraph of the fifth page, quickly determining River had written this piece about the downfall of the Aplan civilization. “Wrong,” he mutters, and snorts. “Very wrong.”

 

Still nothing.

 

Clearing his throat, he begins to read aloud in the most mocking, derisive voice he can muster until he can’t stomach reading anymore about dusty old findings of bones and pottery. With a loud sigh, he proclaims, “River, this is so wrong it almost circles completely around to being right again. Except it’s still wrong.”

 

The library remains silent.

 

He’s never known River to pass up an opportunity to smack him for mocking her work. Ever. With a growl, he tosses aside the article and leaps from his chair, standing in the middle of the cavernous room and spinning in a circle, eyes searching desperately just for a peek of a lone curl behind a bookshelf, just the sound of her voice echoing around him. _Anything_.

 

The quiet rings in his ears. River had not risen to the bait and he realizes she has more of that famous patience of the Ponds than he ever gave her credit for. He pictures her standing nearby glaring at him, mouth pursed so tightly her lips are white with the strain of remaining silent, and almost smiles.

 

“I don’t blame you, you know,” he says softly, glancing around the empty room that he hopes really isn’t empty at all. “For not wanting to speak to me. I ruined your life, River, and I was never a good enough husband to make up for that.”

 

It’s true, but he never would have said it out loud to her until now. He’d say anything if she would only show herself.

 

“And then I left you.” He blinks hard, his voice hoarse as he continues, “Like a book on a shelf, you said. I’m sorry, honey. Please just… talk to me. Tell me you don’t hate me. I couldn’t bear it.”

 

The minutes tick by and not a sign of River.

 

The Doctor sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face. “What are you planning to do? Remain my silent guardian until the day I die?”

 

Oh.

 

He lifts his head with a gasp. If there is one thing River will not stand for – one thing that will make her blow her cover – it’s the Doctor putting himself in danger. Without another moment’s hesitation, he races to the stairs and climbs to the second level of the library, stumbling over his own feet in his haste. He halts to a stop when he reaches the railing overlooking the first level, glancing around as he sheds his jacket.

 

She probably thinks he wouldn’t dare.

 

Oh, but he would.

 

The Doctor straightens his bowtie, tugs at his waistcoat and very carefully slides his long legs over the side of the railing, hands gripping it tightly as he perches precariously. The second level is higher than it had looked from the ground and his breathing hitches for a moment. “I suppose this is it,” he says aloud. “No more face of a twelve year old. That should make you happy.”

 

_Come on, River._

 

Slowly, he begins to uncurl his fingers from the railing, knowing the moment he lets go, he’ll lose his balance and fall to his next regeneration. He’s only attempting to scare River into showing herself, but as he stares down at the leather sofa on the first floor – where they use to sprawl together, limbs entangled and sharing the same page of a book – he wonders if maybe it might be best to just do it. It would be so easy to just let go and fall. Maybe his next self would be better equipped to handle this body’s heartache. Maybe the thought of River wouldn’t hurt quite so much.

 

The Doctor squeezes his eyes shut, dropping his chin to rest against his chest. As easy it would be and as tempting as it sounds, he knows he won’t do it. He isn’t ready to say goodbye to this face – not yet. This face had a family. This face loved River and was loved so very deeply in return. It’s all he has left and he will hold onto it for as long as he can.

 

The silence in the library presses in around him like a living thing and until now, he’s been able to convince himself that River was still with him even if he couldn’t see her but he can’t lie to himself anymore and the thought creeps upon him most unwelcome. He really is alone. Shakily, he grips the railing and swings his legs back over the side, his feet hitting the floor as he pushes away from the edge and stumbles toward his jacket lying on the floor. Tears in his eyes, he sinks to his knees next to it, a heap of old bones and young skin and tweed.

 

She really left him.

 

Years of dogging his footsteps, never letting him have a moment’s peace even in sleep and now she’s just _gone_. If he thought having the ghost of his wife with him was painful, it was only because he didn’t know the wrenching agony of her absence. He thought she would drive him mad but he knows now that not going mad had never been an option – it has only ever been the choice between going mad with or without her. He chooses to be haunted.

 

-

 

“I want to speak to my wife.”

 

It’s all he says when he shows up on Vastra’s doorstep, his jaw set and his eyes burning with a quiet, manic need. Jenny shows him into the parlor and bustles about preparing tea as he paces the length of the parlor agitatedly. Vastra watches him in silence. “Have you contacted her since -”

 

He can’t make himself finish that sentence but Vastra doesn’t need him to. “I have.”

 

Freezing mid-pace, he whirls to face her, his coat swishing around his knees. “When? How often? Why hasn’t she come to see me?”

 

Vastra fixes him with a quelling look. “That is for you to discuss with your wife, my friend.” She glances fondly at her wife. “The tea, Jenny.”

 

The Doctor watches her pour him a cup and slip a soporific into it, stirring the mixture like she might a bit of milk and sugar. He turns away, his stomach suddenly in knots, and scrubs a hand over his face. “Maybe this is a bad idea. She obviously doesn’t want to see me -”

 

“You and I both know that is very far from the truth.”

 

He flinches from Vastra’s knowing gaze, his voice soft as he replies, “We said our goodbyes.”

 

“Then why are you here?”

 

He snaps his head up to look at her with a sigh. “Because I never thought she’d actually leave.”

 

Vastra nods once, accepts the tea from Jenny and pushes it into his hands. “Don’t forget to think of a desktop. She won’t be expecting you. I may have led her to believe she would be meeting me.”

 

“Surprising the missus.” The Doctor grins, reaching up with one hand to straighten his bowtie. “How do I look?” At Vastra’s blank look, he sighs. “Never mind. Not trying to impress you anyway. Bottom’s up.” He lifts the cup to his mouth, tilts his head back and gulps.

 

Jenny gasps. “Doctor, no -”

 

“Quickly, dear, help me get him to the settee -”

 

The Doctor sways a bit unsteadily on his feet and feels his knees begin to give out, his eyes sliding shut. Struggling to stay awake, he opens them again but he isn’t lying on the floor of Vastra’s parlor, as expected. He’s sitting on a blanket in the sand and as he glances around, he realizes he’s in the shadow of the Great Pyramids of Giza, the sky around him pink and purple and orange with the setting sun. 

 

Perhaps he really is a nostalgic idiot.

 

In a blaze of light, River sits across from him in a long white dress that clings to her hips and waist, blinking to adjust as she glances around. The moment she spots him, she freezes, staring unashamedly, her face white. She doesn’t say a word but he drinks in the sight of her greedily, curling his hands into fists in his lap to keep from reaching out and touching her. “Hi honey. I’m home.”

 

She shakes her head, trembling. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

 

He raises his brows and says a silent thanks to the universe when his voice doesn’t tremble. “Since when do I do anything I’m supposed to, wife?”

 

River swallows thickly. “We already said goodbye.”

 

The Doctor nods slowly, pursing his lips as he ducks his head, peeking at her through his fringe because he spent far too long pretending he couldn’t see her when he should have been staring every second he could spare. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I tend to handle those rather badly.”

 

“Doctor -”

 

“I thought you were coming back,” he rushes to explain, his voice high and pleading, seconds from cracking. “Do you really think I could have let you go if I thought it was forever? I’m a selfish old man, River, and I would have _fought_ to keep you with me.” River blinks away tears and drops her eyes to her knees. “Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for you? I almost jumped off the second floor of the TARDIS library trying to get you to show up -”

 

“You did _what_?” River looks outraged, her nostrils flaring with indignation.

 

“Not the point,” he rushes on. “The point is that I keep expecting to see you across the console or feel you next to me when I sleep -”

 

“Oh, sweetie.” She looks at him pityingly, her green eyes bright with tears. “That’s why I can’t come back. I’m dead, my love.”

 

He flinches violently.

 

“I’m sorry, but I am. You can’t fix this and going back would do nothing but hurt us both because it wouldn’t be real. We’d only be fooling ourselves.” She sniffles. “It’s best if you move on, find friends. Find love again. And cherish what we had, sweetie, because it was so beautiful while it lasted.”

 

He shakes his head, jaw flexing stubbornly and his throat tight with emotion. “That isn’t enough.”

 

“Of course it isn’t,” she breathes, smiling softly. “Because it isn’t everything. And my selfish old man wants everything, hm?”

 

He can’t bring himself to smile the way she wants him to, speaking around the lump in his throat. “You think I don’t know it isn’t real? That you’re nothing more than a data ghost haunting me because I failed you? I _know_ , River. But it’s all I have – _you’re_ all I have and I’ll take you any way I can. It isn’t everything but it’s enough.” He watches her pleadingly. “Just don’t leave me again.”

 

“An invisible wife only you can see?” River wipes angrily at her cheek, where a tear has slipped and revealed a weakness. “It’ll drive you mad!”

 

“I’m already mad,” he answers quietly. “I’d rather be mad with you than mad alone.” River shuts her eyes, tears spilling down her cheeks unheeded. Never able to stand the sight of her tears, the Doctor crosses the space between them on the blanket, reaching out hesitantly to stroke her face, wondering if he can touch her at all. Her eyes fly open at the brush of his fingertips over the apple of her cheek, a soft gasp catching in her throat. She turns into his hand just like she had on Trenzalore, melting into him like a woman starved of her husband’s touch for far too long. “Come back, River. Haunt me.”

 

He slides his hand into her hair, winding curls around his fingers, and River shudders, releasing a whimper so unlike her he has no choice but to close the remaining distance between them and kiss her. She tastes like champagne and the printed word, and the Doctor groans, holding her close as poems and love stories, histories and folklore spill onto his tongue from hers, a kiss wrapped up in data code and all the books in the universe. River makes another soft noise of quiet need that undoes him entirely and he kisses her with hard desperation, his hearts racing in his chest and his blood singing in his veins.

 

Even cradled in his arms, his wife manages to take control, curling her hands into the collar of his jacket and pushing him onto his back. He sprawls across the blanket willingly and River straddles his hips, breaking their kiss with one last nip to his bottom lip. Dazed, the Doctor blinks up at her slowly, resplendent and ethereal against the backdrop of the desert sky. His hands slip beneath the hem of her pure white dress, sliding up smooth thighs and listening to her soft sigh, watching the parting of full, tempting lips as his fingertips tickle her inner thighs and find her without knickers. “Still my bad girl,” he whispers, stroking his fingers through slick folds.

 

“Always,” she breathes, eyes fluttering shut as he plays her like a well-practiced instrument, an ancient, complicated one that only he knows how to make music with. A caress here, a stroke there, a flick of his wrist as he delves deep inside – he knows all the secret ways to make her sing. And River always sings so beautifully for him.

 

Her cries still echoing in the air around him, she collapses into his chest, shaking, and the Doctor holds her close, stroking his hand over her curls and humming softly. “I need you with me, my River,” he whispers. “In whatever form you take.”

 

She presses her lips to the hollow of his throat, her breath still shuddering in her chest. “You know I will never leave you when you need me, my love.”

 

Still clutching her to him, the Doctor turns and presses her into the blanket beneath them, his mouth at her throat and her scent – time and spring rain and desert sand – all around him. “Forever, then. You’ll stay forever.”

 

She laughs softly. “Forever is a very long time.”

 

“But never long enough,” he replies, and she kisses him in agreement.

 

Her small hands shake as she undresses him, manipulating buttons and zippers, but the Doctor can’t seem to make his own hands work at anything other than stroking her skin through her dress and burying his face in her hair, whispering how he’d missed her in every language he knows and a few he doesn’t. Legs wrapped around his waist and her dress pooled around her hips, River guides him to her entrance and the Doctor turns his head with sudden clarity, kissing her with reckless abandon as he shifts his hips and pushes inside her. River gasps against his mouth as she stretches around him, her eyes wide and dark, her fingers tightly laced through his own. _Oh_ she is just as perfect as he remembers, silken and wet all around him and he doesn’t care what she says – this feels more real to him than anything else since the last time she touched him. River may be a ghost, a mere essence of herself, but she never fails to make him feel _alive_.

 

She moves with him, her hands carding through his hair as he thrusts, the words falling from her lips alternating between nonsensical comfort _I’m here I love you I’m here_ and filthy pleas _harder yes there don’t stop sweetie_. He clings to her, his fingers digging into her hips and tears in his eyes as he gazes down at her – his bespoke psychopath and his wife, his data ghost and his sanity. Love and desire well inside him like a tidal wave and just before he drowns, River drags his mouth down to hers and rescues him with a kiss, just as she always does. She clenches around him as she comes, soft, rhythmic pulses that draw his release from him like an epiphany or a holy cleansing, and the Doctor buries his face in the sweet, dusty curls of her hair, a man reborn.

 

His eyes slip closed against his will, no matter how badly he wants to stay here with her, and he clings to her all the tighter, as if it will be enough to anchor him. He feels her fading away and struggles against it, his eyes snapping open. But instead of seeing the desert sky obstructed by River’s curls, he finds himself staring up into the faces of Vastra and Jenny, peering down at him anxiously. His arms are empty and for a moment he panics, gasping and nearly smacking his forehead against Jenny’s as he scrambles to sit up. He topples right off the settee and into the floor, landing with a dull _thud_ but it doesn’t matter because the laughter he hears as his face meets the floor is entirely worth it.

 

The Doctor beams slowly, lifting his head to find his wife standing by the mantle, her white dress pooling at her ankles and her eyes twinkling with mischief, just the way he likes them. “River.”

 

Vastra and Jenny glance around the empty parlor, clearly puzzled.

 

River smiles, wide enough to rival any sun on any planet he’s ever seen, beautiful and gone but still somehow with him. “Hello sweetie.”


End file.
